1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of cleaning a print head, the method being used for an ink type recording apparatus such as ink jet printer.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional ink type recording apparatuses, such as ink jet printers, are provided with a head cleaning mechanism which performs a head cleaning operation for a predetermined length of time and subsequently resumes a recording operation. The cleaning operation includes a suction operation and an ejection operation. The tips of the ink nozzles of the head are negatively pressurized for the suction operation, and then the ink is ejected through the nozzles for the ejection operation, thereby removing dried ink from the ink nozzles.
With the conventional method, a fixed series of cleaning steps are performed for a predetermined time length regardless of how often the printing operation is performed. Therefore, when a printing operation is performed a long time after the printer was used last time, performing such a fixed series of cleaning steps is often not enough to thoroughly remove dried ink deposited on the nozzles. This necessitates an additional operation such as forcibly removing dried ink using, for example, a fine needle.